RUTHFULLY YOURS

Initial reaction to Macron’s speech was one of nearly unanimous disappointment over a missed opportunity. “We were expecting concrete policies,” said the mayor of Aulnay-sous-Bois, Bruno Beschizza. “For now, there is nothing practical. I came out empty-handed.”

An estimated six million people — around one-tenth of France’s population — live in 1,500 neighborhoods classified by the government as Sensitive Urban Zones (zones urbaines sensibles, ZUS), priority targets for urban renewal.

Back in Paris, Macron admitted that France has “lost the battle over drug trafficking in many cities.” He promised to announce a new plan to combat drug trafficking “by July.”

President Emmanuel Macron has substantially scaled back plans to rehabilitate France’s banlieues — poverty-ridden and crime-infested neighborhoods with large Muslim populations — and has instead called on local mayors and civil society groups to find solutions at the grassroots level.

The policy reversal follows weeks of internal debate about whether a top-down or bottom-up approach is the best way to improve life in the troubled banlieues, which are breeding grounds for Islamic fundamentalism and are often referred to as no-go zones because of the dangerous conditions there for police and other representatives of state authority.

In a much-anticipated speech at the Élysée Palace on May 22, Macron announced only modest, non-budgeted, initiatives for the banlieues, including a plan to hire more police officers, a crackdown on drug trafficking and a corporate internship program for underprivileged youths.

Addressing 600 guests, including lawmakers, entrepreneurs, community leaders and residents, Macron said that he would not be announcing yet another “Marshall Plan for the suburbs,” as a 2008 plan for urban renewal was called, because at least ten previous such strategies all have failed:

“I will not announce a city plan or a suburban plan because this strategy is as old as me. The first plan was presented by [former French prime minister] Raymond Barre about the time I was born… we are at the end of what this method is able to produce.”

Brad Hammond lives on the waterfront at Kirby’s Beach in Ontario, and he had never seen anything like it: glass shards and sewing needles had been deliberately planted at intervals along the beach, leading to the beach being closed for the first time in his memory. Another beach area, Bracebridge Bay Park, was closed as well. For the first time, but not likely the last, jihad had come to the beaches of Ontario.

There is no doubt that the glass and needles had been placed on the beach deliberately. “It was pretty much the width of the beach but it was in clumps, so you could tell it had been seeded in different areas,” Hammond said. Global News added that “Bracebridge Mayor Graydon Smith said the discovery of the needles and glass goes beyond what municipal staff would typically encounter after a spring melt.”

But who did this? Global News professed not to know, saying: “What remains unclear is who is responsible.” However, several weeks ago, Toronto-area media outlets received a letter purporting to be from a group called the Islamic Revolutionary Force, vowing to “destroy your beaches from Toronto to North Bay.”

The letter explained: “We do this because you reject Islam and follow the Great Satan. Infidels you allow your women to disgracefully, shamelessly parade around your beaches all but naked!” The letter writer claimed that the group had already begun to target the beaches: “We have started with the Muskoka’s and other tourist destinations. Your Northern towns are extremely easy targets, unlike cities.” Kirby’s Beach and Bracebridge Bay Park are in Muskoka. The letter says: “Yes we have destroyed your beaches over the winter months with snowmobiles, making them unsafe and all but unusable.”

Wales is opening its first female genital mutilation (FGM) clinic to provide medical and psychological help for victims of the abhorrent practice.

It’s estimated that 2,000 women and girls in Wales live with FGM.

FGM is often carried out for religious and cultural reasons, usually associated with Islam. In some sects of Islam, FGM is mandatory. It is promoted by the Ulema Council in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country by population.

According to The Independent, one FGM case is reported every hour in the U.K.

The practice has been illegal in the United Kingdom since 1985, but British authorities have failed to bring forth one successful prosecution. In 2014, the first FGM clinic opened in London, and four more clinics have opened since then.

In Wales alone, 123 victims were treated for FGM in 2016 – with 44 of the victims being children under 18.